Down products filled with insulating materials such as duck down or goose down are used not only for cold weather clothing and bedding, but recently they are also taking center stage as products for outdoor clothing or the like.
As to clothing or bedding products prepared by incorporating a wadding material between an outer fabric and an inner fabric, the incorporated wadding material may generate phenomena such as getting lumpy, moving around, getting stacked or the like while manufacturing or utilizing the products, which may cause various inconveniences. When the wadding material is a fabric such as a cloth, the above phenomena can be prevented by fixing the edge of the wadding material to the edge of the product. When the wadding material is a continuous material such as cotton or wool, the wadding material can be prevented from moving or getting lumpy by sewing the inner fabric and outer fabric together with the wadding material therebetween by backstitching or quilting.
When the wadding material is a non-continuous material such as duck feathers or goose feathers, it is difficult to fix the wadding material by backstitching or quilting. Therefore, the wadding material is prevented from moving or getting lumpy by means of separate room such as down compartments formed between the inner fabric and the outer fabric.
A down compartment is generally formed by connecting an inner fabric and an outer fabric with combining or bonding lines for separating a compartment, and the compartments (rooms) formed by the inner fabric, the outer fabric and the combining lines are filled with down (down feather). For example, in a down jacket, sewing line compartment walls formed at a certain interval by sewing the inner fabric together with the outer fabric, and then the opened ends of the inner fabric and outer fabric are subjected to an overlock finishing to form spatially closed down compartments.
Down products having the above down compartments can prevent down from moving around or moving back, but still have other problems such as, first, an exudation of down and an introduction of moisture through the fabric itself, second, an exudation of down and an introduction of moisture through sewing holes or needle holes, and third, an increase of manufacturing cost due to the additional sewing processes for forming down compartments.
Recently, there have been proposed many seamless method of preventing down feathers from being escaping or rain water from introducing by forming a down compartment via non-sewing manners such as a fusion manner of surfaces themselves or a fabric bonding manner using an adhesive or a hot melt. However, these seamless methods cannot be applied to a real production owing to the problems such as an insufficient bonding strength of the compartment-separating line formed by a fusion or bonding, a damage of the fabrics or a poor finishing quality of the pattern line on the fabric surface.
For example, Korean Utility Model Application No. 20-2006-0022001 suggests a method for preparing a duck feather cloth wherein a double fabric is firstly prepared by introducing the adhesive in a wave shape between an inner fabric and an outer fabric to form a wave-shaped adhesive part and then the obtained double fabric is cut and sewed in a desired shape and pattern to prepare a duck feather cloth, and a manufacturing device of the double fabric which comprises an adhering device part, a bonding device part and a drying device part. Although this document discloses a manufacturing device of a double fabric for down products through a pre-combining post-cutting manner not through an existing pre-cutting post-combining manner, it has problems such that, first, the adhesive may be smeared or transferred since an inner fabric on which an adhesive is attached is laminated with an outer fabric without drying the adhesive, second, the adhesion strength may be deficient since the bonding is achieved simply by contacting and laminating an inner fabric with an outer fabric and then drying the laminate fabrics, and third, any pattern line is rarely formed on the surface of the fabrics.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-328462 discloses a technology and device wherein a liquid adhesive is injected via an injection needle between an inner fabric and an outer fabric and then a high-frequency heating and pressing method is performed to together bond the inner fabric, the intermediate matters and the outer fabric and simultaneously to inlay a quilting pattern on the surface. In this document, the liquid adhesive is injected into the intermediate matter and then subjected to a high-frequency heating and pressing method without any drying to bond the inner fabric-intermediate matter-outer fabric. As a result, it is possible to clearly form on the surface a pattern which is the same with that of the pattern of a pressing tip. However, there is generated a problem that the adhesion state is variable and not uniform. In other word, when an inner fabric and an outer fabric are bonded by the technology described in said document, it is possible to have a predetermined pattern on a surface. However, since the liquid adhesive introduced into the inside can spread around during the pressing, the finishing of the adhering line would be very poor and uneven, as well as the needle holes created when injecting the adhesive may cause a damage to fabric and a penetration of moisture.
Under such circumstances, the inventors of the embodiments of the present invention understood that it is difficult or impractical to execute real production according to the existing methods of forming down compartments by a sewing method, a fusion method or a bonding method according to the known technologies since they have problems that needle holes are created to cause an exudation of feathers or an invasion of rain water; that fabrics may be damaged by sewing or fusing; that bonding or combining lines between fabrics are deficient in the bonding strength and durability; and that bonding pattern lines on the surface of fabrics are not clear or poor in its finish quality. As a result, the inventors has tried to develop a new manufacturing method of down products which can solve or does not have such disadvantages or problems, especially a new method of down products having bonding pattern lines for separating compartments, wherein the bonding line for compartment separation inside the fabrics has an excellent adhesiveness and durability, and the pattern line on the fabric surface is clear and its finishing quality is excellent, and thus is aesthetically excellent.
As a result, by coating or printing an adhesive liquid in a predetermined printing pattern in a printing manner, drying the adhesive liquid to an appropriate level and then combining the fabrics under pressing by a high-frequency heating manner, the present inventors could manufacture a down product which has bonding lines for compartment separation between fabrics and has pattern lines at the same position with the bonding lines on the surface of the fabrics, without forming sewing holes and without causing any damage to the fabric, wherein the inner bonding line has an excellent adhesiveness and durability, the surface pattern line is clear and its finishing quality is excellent.